“I have fantastic aim, don't worry.”
“All right, after it's clear, land in hangar two.”
“See you there.”
The channel closed and she armed her pulse cannons.
“I still can't believe how much he looks like me. I mean, I know he's a version of me built around a materializer frame, but it's like looking into another dimension, seeing the dark version of yourself.”
“You think you're confused? Imagine the look on his face when he sees you.” She locked on to the smaller ship and angled her guns parallel to the hull of the Triton then opened fire with a burst. Half the vessel flew into pieces, the thin hull came apart like paper. She fired one more burst, closer to the Triton's hull and cleared all but the docking port away. She sucked air in between her teeth as her last pair of shots deflected off of the Triton's armour. “That's gonna scorch.” She cringed. “Good thing it's superficial.”
She flipped the Clever Dream end over end and started a long turn that brought them in line with the open hangar on the underside of the much larger ship. “Reunion tiiiime,” she announced with a smile.
“Can we enter hyperspace?” Captain Valance asked the helm.
“Our profile is clean enough sir, as soon as the Clever Dream is aboard and the hangar doors are closed we'll be good to go,” replied Larry from navigation.
The bridge was dead silent as everyone watched the main holographic projector display the Clever Dream landing in hangar two. As the sleek, black ship decelerated and touched down, the hangar doors slowly closed behind it.
They sealed. “Get us out of here,” Captain Valance ordered.
Ashley increased throttle to maximum as Larry started the hyperspace particle emitters and the Triton was moving faster than light in a matter of seconds. There was a collective sigh of relief on the bridge as the realization that they had made it out of the area sunk in.
The View From The Top
The Communications Lounge aboard the Kraken was pleasantly busy that afternoon. There were many well dressed men and women going about their business remotely, contacting their posts through micro wormhole assisted transmissions and hyper bursts as they pored over prospect data on the Enreega System. It was a boom time.
The white and red booths and round tables filling the thickly carpeted space were the offices of the Regent Galactic Development and Product Deployment employees. They were the elite, the ones that generated the big projects, chased down the prospects that kept billions of peons in countless subsidiaries and contracted partners busy.
Few had the opportunity to mix in if they weren't among their number, to walk up to the bar and have a complimentary unrationed drink, or to stand and look through the transparent wall at the top of the Kraken and watch all those rescue and utility ships go about their business. It was a monarch's vista with a rich water planet in the distance and the wreckage of thousands of vessels scattered across the busiest area in the system. The pickings were ripe for those who knew how to best take advantage. Cities were just waiting to be rebuilt, there was a well trained displaced work force looking for new jobs, and those rescue ships would soon be filled with people wondering where they'd be sleeping.
The citizens had little to worry about. Rebuilding the Enreega system and the cities on the planet Seneschal would take years, possibly decades, but everyone would have plenty of opportunities and living space while the work was under way. They'd work under contract, have plenty of jobs to bid on and when it was all done they'd have great cities to live in and Regent Galactic would take care of all their needs for a price balanced against maximum market tolerance.
These things were of little concern to two gentlemen sitting beside one of the massive two storey tall windows facing the moon named Vallestra. A quick flash of light marked the departure of what their attentions were drawn to. “What do you think the problem was?” The short one asked. He wasn't just stout, he had the appearance of a boy not yet in his teen years.
“Who knows? We performed perfectly. The code was sent but Wheeler never acknowledged it. Were there any reports from our agents aboard?” Meunez, the taller of the pair, asked before taking a sip of his drink. The ice rattled in the bottom of the glass as he brought it up to his chapped lips. He wore a blue Freeground style vacsuit and a flight jacket that made him look even thinner and more sickly than he was.
“None, and there was no evidence of jamming on the bands we'd expect them to use. It is a waste to have to send the termination code though, that's what bothers me most,” Lister Hampon said, he looked truly remorseful.
“Perhaps he was injured?”
“Maybe, it's just as well. His chances of success weren't very high. It's that ship, we weren't allowed to give him the crew he needed. It wasn't in the budget. Too bad too, research and development had a field day with it before we gave it to him.”
“Do you think he realized that the compound we built into him is an explosive?”
The younger of the two shrugged, causing the shoulder pads built into his suit to touch his ears. “How could he? It's part of his body chemistry, built right in at the bottom of his major femurs. All we did was signal his nervous system to start the intermix process, in an hour or two he'll be seventy five kilos of high explosives. We told him it was lethal though, so he had every incentive to reply to our signals.”
“Will it explode right away?”
“It's random, any time after it goes active. Could be an hour, could be a couple minutes.”
“Ah, those research and development boys love their games. What are the symptoms?” Meunez asked, clearing scraggly hair out of his face.
“He'll have a fever, it'll get worse until he's sweating profusely, then his blood will stop coagulating. His orifices will start to leak as it thins out and his heart starts to pump faster to finish the intermix, then he'll die. The healthier he is the faster it works, that's one certainty.”
“Nasty. Remind me to file my T-74's on time next week,” he chuckled.
“Oh, they don't use this stuff on us. They'd just disavow our involvement and put an unbelievable bounty on our heads. We'd be fugitives everywhere.”
“I could imagine.”
The younger of the pair stood and ran his hand through his sandy blonde hair. “Well, Jake Valance is still out there, we have to send something out to try and get control of him so I released the last of our subjects captured from Starfree Port and activated the last copy of Wheeler. He's been working as a miner for a year or so, out of the way.”
“Should we tell the new one about what happened to his predecessor?” Asked Gabriel as his eyes flicked and focused to something else for a moment before focusing on Hampon again.
“Why not? I'm sure going after his ship will be a good incentive. Wheeler's profile also suggests he's a big believer in revenge. Too bad he's the last one.”
“Speaking of duplicates, how is the new body working out?”
“Great. I just wish my old one held out a few more years. Taking advantage of the more attractive Saved ones is nigh on impossible with this appearance. Still, I can't complain. I have almost half my memories and another lifetime ahead.”
Meunez's face twitched and his eyes squeezed shut for a moment.
“What is it that you're doing that has you so distracted?”
His face relaxed and he sighed. “Interfacing with the Holocaust Virus. We are teaching each other wonderful things.”
Lister's eyes went wide. “That's not wise, you're far too close to your micro-core for that to be even remotely safe. The Virus could actually access your human brains' input output systems.”
“Yes, that's the point. To create a new virus that no machine can predict. The changes it affects in me are equally impressive. I've finally felt the emotions of a machine first hand.”